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Julie Shields
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How to Avoid the Mommy Trap: A Roadmap for Sharing Parenting and Making It Work (Capital Ideas) Paperback – November 24, 2003

by Julie Shields (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 7 ratings
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Typically, when a woman thinks about getting pregnant, she considers whether to give up or cut back on her career or use daycare or a nanny. Now families have another alternative - mothers and fathers can share family responsibilities.

Having made almost every pre-baby planning mistake that exists, when Julie Shields became a mother, she did the same thing most other new moms do. She fell in love with her daughter, took on more parenting and household duties than she ever expected, cut back at work, and complained that her husband’s life hadn’t changed much at all.

After noticing that many women felt trapped by the alternatives they saw available to them, Shields interviewed marital counselors, childcare workers, negotiation experts, employers, child development experts, work-life counselors, researchers in many disciplines, and lots of parents, to find out how to create a family balance. She discovered that the happiest families had created personalized work and parenting arrangements that took every family member’s needs and desires into account, and did not rely on outdated gender roles.

"How to Avoid the Mommy Trap" is the result of all the interviews, conversations, research, and observations Shields made on her journey. It emphasizes real-life solutions and strategies, highlights common missteps, and demonstrates the value of a flexible new paradigm—sharing parenting. Whether you are looking for an equal parenting partner, a way to balance life and family, or just a break now and then, the portraits of couples who share parental responsibilities will help you design the life you want to lead.

This is the first book to go beyond analysis to offer life-tested answers for men and women in the twenty-first century. Full of practical and honest advice, it can change your life.

Author Events

August 15, 2003 - WCUB Breakfast Club, 10 a.m.

August 26, 2003 - WFHR Radio, 10 a.m.

August 27, 2003 - WBKC, 8:30a.m.

August 29, 2003 - KLPW Radio, 12:10 p.m.

September 12, 2003 into September 13, 2003 - WBZ Radio, 1 a.m.

September 13, 2003 - WFAS "Here’s to Your Good Health," 11 a.m.

September 27, 2003 - KTKK Interviews & Interactions with Linda Strasberg, 5:30 p.m.

October 29, 2003 - Speaking Engagement at the 92nd Street Y in New York City

November 1, 2003 - WFHG 92.7 FM / WXBQ "The Barbara McFaddin Show," 10am
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  1. Print length
    238 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Capital Books
  4. Publication date
    November 24, 2003
  5. Dimensions
    5 x 0.75 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1931868557
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1931868556
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Emphasizes real-life solutions and strategies and highlights common missteps. -- Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

About the Author

Julie Shields is an intellectual property attorney and freelance writer. She has successfully lobbied her employer for more flexible work arrangements and is spearheading an effort to improve federal employees' parental leave options. She lives with her husband and their two daughters in McLean, Virginia.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Capital Books (November 24, 2003)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 238 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1931868557
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1931868556
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.75 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 7 ratings

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Julie Shields

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
7 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

T. Lee
4.0 out of 5 stars Was a gift
Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2009
Verified Purchase
This book was a gift for my sister, who is raising three young girls. I don't have an opinion on it, since I have not read it or discussed it with her. But I had bought it for her because it had gotten good reviews here. Ordinarily, I don't like to give parenting to advice to others, but was impressed with the good reviews.
One person found this helpful
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Rebecca Allen
5.0 out of 5 stars Off-putting Title; Fabulous Book
Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2006
Verified Purchase
Shields is a parental leave activist, but she's got a lot of suggestions on what new parents can do until then. She addresses some of the reasons women gatekeep on domestic stuff and childcare, and how to stop doing that. She proposes two part time jobs and a limited amount of child care as a strategy for caring for small children in a way that includes both parents while still allowing them time to work (about thirty hours a week) and nurture their relationship. While primarily addressed at heterosexual relationships, she includes numerous examples from same-sex couples.

Great stuff, especially about negotiation, for peer marriages/marriages where both adults work for pay. Not so great for other situations. Also take a look at Coleman's _The Lazy Husband_ (another book in search of a better title).
9 people found this helpful
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Learning New Ways
5.0 out of 5 stars Well done; very helpful book
Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2012
This book is very well done. My only reservations are in the chapter "Laws that Can Help", which I'll mention more about below.

Her section on "traditional," "transitional" and "egalitarian" couples and how the mid-ground can have a lot of conflict was very helpful.

She does a great job showing negotiation techniques that women and men can use to set up their marriages and families prior to having children. As she points out, the norm has been male dominance for so long that many women and men have internalized this set-up (often in part from their families of origin, but also from the broader culture, religion, government, etc.), only to find out later that it doesn't work, their children suffer in many ways, financial instability of the family results, and divorce becomes a real risk or actual event.

She does a good job identifying some of those internalized beliefs and presenting alternatives that are more functional.

She even offers techniques that couples who are already down the path of marriage and family a ways can use. This is much harder to remedy later, and some of the child development issues that can occur when there is a poor quality set-up between the parents are difficult to repair later. Nonetheless, there are still many benefits to fixing this later in marriage rather than divorcing or suffering further child development problems.

She lost me a bit in her section on "Laws that Can Help". It was baffling that she argued for men to take 2-week paid paternity leave, while women should have longer leaves, when the whole thesis of her book is the benefits of equal care and equal earning by parents. Also arguments that stay-at-home parents should be paid by the state also lost me and seemed grossly at odds with the thesis of the book. She also has a stridency about her arguments; I think in the process she misses some very real and profound economic arguments in support of the thesis of shared care, including how countries with more gender equality, such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, are among the most competitive in the world, with the highest standard of living in the world. (Norway's standard of living is now approaching twice that of the US.) But to get to seeing these arguments, she would need to not throw the baby out with the bath water and instead accept FMLA's gender neutrality and its placement of some planning responsibility on parents. Also, the citizenship issue is important to note. The Nordics have never had "jus soli" citizenship (where any child born on the soil of the country is a citizen regardless of the parents' citizenship). They have "jus sanguinis", where the parents must be citizens (now that paternity is inexpensively provable this has implications they are sorting through.)

I think the US is unlikely to allow a shift of 100% of the cost of having a child in early years to the state and taxpayers. Even a collective parental leave insurance program may be a tough sell, although I know California now has this type of program. I think it is better to see the parental leave financing as a matter that needs structuring by government, but funding on a narrower basis. People do need to recognize what it costs to have a child (both in terms of the money and the personal time each parent must contribute) and to take responsibility for that.

I don't think we should pay people to have children; this turns the parents into children themselves (or prevents them from doing the work of becoming adults themselves before they have children). This is one area where the Nordic economies may need to reform. The high tax rates in some of those countries have caused problems, and, in Sweden in particular they have faced problems with a high percentage of people on welfare (although the country remains one of the wealthiest and most productive in the world, with a per capital GDP that exceeds that of the US).

And gender-neutrality does make a big difference. European countries that have focused on collectively funded maternity leave have especially had difficulty with fertility rates; the Nordics that have focused on paternity leave matching maternity leave have had much more success with preventing declining birth rates.

What I think might work is:

1. Extending FMLA to one year per parent, and creating more guidelines for its use for child care rather than illness of the child or parent.
2. Adding a 401K-style program where employees could contribute to save up for parental leave and that employers could contribute to if they wished.
3. Giving tax credits to parents who take FMLA leave equally (either consecutive or staggered).

This basic formula of federal action (which states and localities could also enact on their own) would provide some early structuring to help families, and would not cost taxpayers or businesses anything.

Finally, I think that this book suffers a bit from the problem many of these books do that are written by women. They have overfocus on the shared parenting and less focus on the shared earning. Women really need to identify as taking financial responsibility as earners to get these types of families. This is no small psychological feat, particularly for those who've grown up in highly gender-role divided homes, but it can be done.
3 people found this helpful
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Amy Tiemann
5.0 out of 5 stars I wish I'd found this book 6 years ago!
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2005
Julie Shields' excellent book "How to Avoid the Mommy Trap" provides a thorough exploration of strategies to help women and men share parenting responsibilities in a way that benefits everybody in the family.

"How to Avoid the Mommy Trap" illuminates the status quo and the calcified gender roles that many couples default to once they become parents. Shields belives that family life doesn't have to unfold that way, and she encourages couples to look beyond the standard choices of nanny, day care, or mother at home. Shields says 'The term Mommy Trap does not refer to giving birth and then having a child to take care of, or give up something for your child....More than anything else, the Mommy Trap describes a failure to understand the wide range of options available to modern parents.' She gives many examples of what it looks like to be caught in the Mommy Trap, including:

'The Mommy Trap snares a mother when she takes on parenting or household responsibilities that result in more unpaid work, and less leisure time and personal time, than she would like, particularly in comparison with her husband.'

Sound familiar? Do you feel like you couldn't even ask to expect things to be different without feeling selfish or guilty? Get this book! It is a primer that illuminates what marriage and parenting could look like if we stuck up for ourselves, let go of controlling the way our husbands parent, and worked to create truly equitable partnerships.
12 people found this helpful
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Amy Beal
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for all parents and potential parents!
Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2002
This book is one of a kind. Whether you are parents already or just thinking about it, How to Avoid the Mommy Trap will help men and women alike think about parenting as a partnership as never done before. This book has been a lifesaving eye-opener for me and my marriage and I am sure I am not the only one out there for whom this is true.
Shields is an innovator. She has changed the paternity leave policies in the State Department. In the book, she gets readers to think about the importance of where your ideal partner stands on work and family issues before meeting him/her or where your current partner stands on such issues before making the making the final commitment.
I am a full-time stay at home mom and I love my job. It is the hardest yet most rewarding job I have ever had and I wouldn't trade it for anything. But I had begun to lose my identity in my mommyness and this book is a guide on how mothers can "let go" without guilt. Julie Shields is helping me get my sense of self back and she doesn't even know me!
Just read the Table of Contents and you'll be hooked too!
Amy Beal
17 people found this helpful
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A. Lamb
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!!!
Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2008
Well Done!!! I think this book is really amazing and practical for addressing all stages in the "parent-sharing" process and what to do to prepare you and your spouse. It also really gets to the bottom of REAL issues and how to have proactive discussions to limit problems that may arise.
3 people found this helpful
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